Natural history broadcaster Sir David Attenborough yesterday launched a new £25m conservation project aimed at reversing has been described as the "silent natural disaster" that is threatening butterfly species in the UK.

Sir David joined founders, trustees and naturalists to unveil the plans for Butterfly World, a visitor attraction that will also act as a conservation vehicle to fund research and community project to save endangered butterfly species.

The initiative comes after figures in a report last year showed that 76% of British butterfly species are declining at a rapid rate.

Six of these species have lost more than 50% of their distribution, the report, from the charity Butterfly Conservation, found. A further 15% have suffered distribution decreases of more than 30%, including formerly widespread butterflies such as the dingy skipper, small pearl-bordered fritillary, wall and grayling.

The report, The State of Britain's Butterflies, measured butterfly populations since the 1970s. It found that five UK species have become extinct. The 54 remaining species were found to be declining faster than birds or plants. Britain's most rapidly declining butterfly, the high brown fritillary, is now only found in isolated colonies in Devon, Lancashire, and just a few colonies in Wales.

The species most threatened are those that have special requirements about where they live. Of the butterflies that need specific habitats such as woodland clearings, heaths, or chalk downland, 93% are in decline.

The marsh fritillary and heath fritillary have the greatest long-term population declines, and there are worrying 10-year trends for the silver-studded blue, and the duke of Burgundy, researchers found.

Attenborough said: "More than three quarters of British butterfly species have declined in the past 20 years - some of them very rapidly.

"That is worrying, not least because these declines indicate an underlying deterioration of the environment as a whole. For the sake of future generations we must take action now.

"Butterfly World is doing just that. It is putting the issues on the agenda and is seeking to help reverse this environmental catastrophe."

Butterfly World, planned on a 26-acre site off the M25 near St Albans in Hertfordshire, will be the world's biggest "walk-through butterfly experience", the organisers have said, with more than 10,000 tropical butterflies in flight at any one time.

It will also incorporate underground caverns featuring tropical creatures including scorpions and spiders.

Work will start on the project, which will give equal prominence to indigenous and tropical species, within the next few weeks.

It is expected to attract up to 1 million visitors when it is fully operational in spring 2011.

The project is being backed by broadcaster and naturalist David Bellamy and the scheme has been the vision of butterfly expert, Clive Farrell.

Farrell said: "Butterflies are like the canaries in the coal mine. When their environment is under stress, they are the first to suffer and disappear.

"During the 20th century, five of Britain's butterfly species and 60 moth species became extinct.

"Drastic butterfly losses are continually being reported as we destroy their natural habitats at a frightening pace."

There is some good news, however. The National Trust last month found that the large blue butterfly, which became extinct in the UK in 1979, is now flourishing at the Trust's Collard Hill reserve in Somerset, where it was reintroduced.

And Butterfly Conservation claims it has seen a remarkable turnaround in the numbers of Chalkhill blue butterflies on one of its Hampshire reserves. This species has declined by more than a third over the past decade, but at a Magdalen Hill Down near Winchester, volunteers monitoring the species have reported an increase in numbers of as much as 700% in more recently. Other butterfly populations at the site, including the common blue, are also showing a spectacular resurgence due to volunteer efforts to expand the land available for butterfly habitats, the charity says.

About this article

Attenborough launches project to stem butterfly decline

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 07.54 EDT on Thursday 13 March 2008.
It was last modified at 07.54 EDT on Friday 14 March 2008.
It was first published at 07.27 EDT on Thursday 13 March 2008.